No easy path planning for 2021 CFL season
The Canadian Football League’s cancelled 2020 season fell victim to a pandemic and an untenable business model, and if both remain materially unchanged by the spring of 2021, the little nineteam loop will be in dire financial peril.
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie was somehow adamant on Monday that 2021 will instead represent “the biggest comeback season in the history of Canadian football.”
But that requires a massive leap of faith over the smouldering ruins of this year.
While the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Canadian Premier League and Canadian Elite Basketball League — sports entities both large and tiny, well-heeled and modest — all returned to play, the CFL couldn’t find its way back to the field, and finally stopped trying 67 days after the 18-game season was supposed to kick off on June 11.
Ambrosie took responsibility for that failure during a conference call with media on Monday. League owners and governors need to step up and accept their share of the blame as well, given that Ambrosie mostly does their bidding as the face of the league. And some of this ghastly mess is surely on a federal government that kept sending signals of impending financial help. At one point, Ottawa was offering a loan of about $40 million, though with fees and an interest rate Ambrosie said would have hampered more than bolstered the CFL’s recovery.
“On two occasions, in June and again at the beginning of August, the government reached out to us with new indications they might step up and help in a more meaningful way,” Ambrosie said earlier in a prepared statement. “But at the end of the day, the help we needed to play this year never materialized. This outcome after months of discussions with government officials is disappointing.”
The CFL’s last gambit was for a $30-million, interest-free loan, and it looked good as late as Thursday. There was genuine optimism that the money would flow, the health and safety protocol for the hub city would be approved by Ottawa, and the league would then sign a new CBA for 2020 with the CFLPA.
So the CFL was blindsided Friday night when the federal government refused to fork over the money. League governors then voted Monday morning to cancel the season rather than attempt to finance a six-game schedule in a bubble environment in Winnipeg. It’s a costly venture. While the government of Manitoba stepped up with $2.5 million to cover player accommodations, meals and transportation in Winnipeg, the CFL needed or at least wanted Ottawa to contribute.
“Even with additional (government) support, our owners and community-held teams would have had to endure significant financial losses to play in 2020,” Ambrosie said in the statement.
A league that Ambrosie said routinely loses $10 million to $20 million annually now has more than eight months to work on that future and what must be a massive financial, cultural and organizational reset.
Ambrosie said Monday afternoon the league has “very specific plans” for that to happen, citing a “more co-operative ecosystem” and “more sharing of resources.” And he is sure the CFL will rise to the challenges that will make 2021 a “softer year for revenue,” as he put it.
His trademark optimism is fine to a point, but the league requires realism and sound leadership more than ever before. It needs to renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement with the players for 2021 and beyond. And there is no doubt that Clause 16 of the CBA will be revisited. Some players believe that clause makes them all free agents in the event “the operation of the league is suspended,” even for a season. League officials believe it only applies if the CFL ceases to operate entirely.
There is so much more to do. The CFL, a gate-driven league, has to cut personnel costs — executives, coaches and players — and drive revenue by finding new sponsors and new fans for all those stadium seats. It needs nine teams to stop acting within silos and co-operate financially and structurally. It has to actually partner up in a meaningful fashion with the players, most of whom haven’t been paid since last fall. Ambrosie said Monday the CFL and CFLPA are working together to ensure as many players as possible receive the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy.
Too little, far too late.